U2360° TOURLeg 3: 2011

San Francisco to Phoenix

13 April 2005

San Francisco to Phoenix

Spent the morning putting drawings together for the followspot platform for the outdoor show (I know how to have a good time, eh?) then went out for a bite of lunch before heading to the airport. I ate at a local place where I ran into Ash & Henry again. San Francisco is that kind of place. I always tell people that even if you don't know anybody here, you're bound to run into somebody you know.

SFO to Phoenix. Flight was fine, dull, which is the way I like them. Arrived in Phoenix to find it was 90 degrees at midnight. Got to the hotel and met up with Bruce and Smasher who were on a beer hunt. Everything was now closed at the hotel, with nothing much else nearby, so we thought we were out of luck. However, Stephanie, the hotel receptionist offered to drive us to the local supermarket. We were a little taken aback, but very grateful, so we piled into her car and ended up at Frys Food and Drug. This was a scene, heralded by a woman outside with the most beautiful Chow Chow dog, which she was feeding slices of processed cheese from a bag. We enquired anxiously as to whether this was really the way to go in the world of doggie nutrition, but she insisted ìoh no, he loves it. And he loves popsicles too, you should see him lick them all the way down to the stickî. Poor beast. Stephanie drove us home, we thanked her kindly and had our beers, feeling good that there were still random good turns being done on our planet.

Within the bands entourage (certainly by comparison to the crews clockwork scheduling) travel departure times are often a little loose. This morning was especially so, due to three contradictory memos which had been emailed out last night and this morning.

There was a 6.30pm conference call arranged between Bono (Dublin), The Edge (Los Angeles), Steve Matthews (London) and myself (also London) to blow the cobwebs off our brains and discuss the reincarnation of the Vertigo Tour.

I was planning on resurrecting the tour diary today, being the day we were scheduled to fly to Auckland for the load-in tomorrow. However, its now old news that the remainder of the tour dates have been postponed, so Im not going anywhere further than the corner cafe. Its been a very weird week indeed - much akin to driving into a wall.